I’m actually surprised by how many classics I’ve avoided reading over the years. I only recently read Dracula. Most classics are free for my Kindle and I’ve downloaded many of them. I just finished Dickens’ classic.

The first thing that I noticed is that it’s very short. It’s barely a novella. Considering the movies that they’ve made from the material, I expected a longer book.

Second, while all of the movie versions that I’ve seen have been pretty much secular, God was mentioned a few times in the book. In fact, it’s mentioned that Scrooge goes to church on the Christmas morning where he wakes up a new man. That’s left out of all the movie versions that I’ve seen.

Third, the depiction of the Ghost of Christmas Past is much different. His first description makes him a shape-shifter. His appearance morphs every time that Scrooge looks at him, with his number of legs changing and things like that.

The Ghost of Christmas Present takes Scrooge to a ship in the ocean to see its Christmas celebration. He also takes him to other lands to see Christmas celebrations in those places, too.

The final part of the book, after his conversion, seems rushed. It does depict him as a better person, but it doesn’t show the Cratchet’s reaction to having a giant turkey sent to them, which was one of my favorite parts of the movie versions.

The book is being told by a narrator as if he is verbally telling the story. We never find out who the person is, but he speaks like a storyteller and refers to himself as “I” on a couple of occasions.